Stig Bergling

Stig Svante Eugén Bergling, later Stig Svante Eugén Sandberg and Stig Svante Eugén Sydholt, (1 March 1937 – 24 January 2015) was a Swedish Security Service officer who spied for the Soviet Union.

In 1957, he did his military service as a coastal ranger at the Vaxholm Coastal Artillery Regiment (KA 1) in Vaxholm.

He also became a reserve officer and advanced to the rank of lieutenant in the "Blocking Battalion Bråviken" where Bergling was responsible for security matters.

The battalion had – in the event of war – the task to defend the inlet to Oxelösund and its surroundings.

In 1958 he began working at Östermalm police station at the same time as Tore Forsberg.

Forsberg was the man who was to become the head of the Swedish counterintelligence and later be one of the men who disclosed Bergling.

After some time, Bergling started working within radiopolisen and then the utlänningsroteln ("alien department").

Bergling was a reserve officer in the Swedish Coastal Artillery, and in 1968 he was stationed in Cyprus as a military police chief.

After having worked as a police officer for 10 years, Bergling was employed in 1969 at the Swedish Security Service (Säpo) and worked at the Bureau II, the surveillance unit, the unit engaged in counterintelligence against Soviet Union agents in Sweden.

In 1971, Bergling was on temporary leave from Säpo and began working at the Defence Staff's Security Department (Fst/Säk).

In his new role as a liaison officer between the Säpo and the Defence Staff, he participated in the work to map the Soviet diplomats' activities in Sweden.

Meanwhile, at Fst/Säk, Bergling copied a binder with classified documents.

The binder contained the so-called fortification code, or FO code (Fortifikationskoden), the top-secret list of Sweden's defence facilities, coastal artillery fortifications, mobilization stores, command centers and radar stations.

Bergling needed the information for his work at the Defence Staff, some times for long periods of time and it was impractical for him to return the original every day.

He got permission from one of his superiors to obtain a copy of it.

When Bergling was later to return it, he became angry with one of his superiors, Bengt Wallroth (later Director-General of the National Defence Radio Establishment) who started arguing and criticizing him.

Bergling disliked the Defence Staff and Wallroth and instead of destroying the copy he kept it and put it in a safe deposit box at Erik Dahlbergsgatan in Stockholm.

Alongside the work home in Sweden, Bergling served several times in various UN battalions around the world.

In November 1972 he came to the Middle East as a UN observer, at first in Israel and the following year in Lebanon.

At that time, GRU officer Alexander Nikiforov was working as military attaché in the Soviet Embassy in Beirut.

Bergling was in need of money and went to the Soviet Embassy and offered Nikiforov the copied binder with secret information.

In November 1973, Bergling switched duty tour in Lebanon with a Belgian major so he could go to Stockholm and retrieve the binder.

He flew from Stockholm via Budapest to Beirut and on the 30 November 1973, he sold the copied binder with the documents to the Soviets.

Bergling received 3,500 dollars for it and was later told, after the binder had been examined in Moscow, that "we already have this information, ours is just a bit older."

Bergling stayed as an UNTSO observer another year in the Middle East and returned home in January 1975, and was then back at the Security Service and the so-called "Russian Division" (Ryssroteln) where he previously worked.

Bergling's contact, Alexander Nikiforov, had realized that as a newly acquired Soviet agent, Bergling would be able to do more good in Sweden.

Back at Säpo, Bergling was instructed by the Soviets to investigate what the Soviet intelligence men did wrong.

The errors were reported by Bergling to Moscow who called them back home.

To get in touch with the Soviets he wrote letters with "invisible writing", which was done with the help of carbon paper.

The Stig Bergling-affair, one of Sweden's greatest spy scandals, began when he was arrested in Israel in 1979 by Israeli counterintelligence and in the same year in Sweden was sentenced to life imprisonment for aggravated espionage.

He escaped in 1987, with the assistance of his then–wife Elisabeth Sjögren during a conjugal visit, and fled to Moscow.

Bergling's escape was a major embarrassment for Sweden's liberal prison system and prompted the resignation of the justice minister.

Bergling lived for several years in the Soviet Union, Hungary and Lebanon until, for health reasons, he voluntarily returned to Sweden in 1994.

He continued to serve his sentence until 1997, when he was paroled.

During the last years of his life, Bergling lived in a Stockholm nursing home and had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

He died there on 24 January 2015, at 77 years old.

Bergling's father, who came from a wealthy home in Sala, was an engineer and worked with general insurance at an insurance company.

Bergling's mother, who came from a working class home in Falun, had a strictly religious upbringing and worked as a secretary during Bergling's upbringing.

Bergling had a younger sister.

He attended Carlssons skola,a private school in Östermalm, Stockholm, and then attended Östra Real.